Awakening As A Date: Apologies to Franz Kafka

by Judy Sobeloff, from the February 2004 newsletter

As Gregorina Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams she found herself transformed into a giant date. She was lying on her hard, as if it were armor-plated, back and when she lifted her head a little she could see her dome-like brown belly on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. She was surrounded by others just like herself, high up in a palm tree.

It wasn’t my place to judge whether this transformation was merely metaphor, and if so, what Gregorina might be trying to say—her shiny brown casing looked real to me. Good enough to eat, you might say, but of course I didn’t dare.

“Think of the opportunities for travel, for adventure!” I called up to her through cupped hands, unwilling to admit, even to myself, that the choicest ones—selection as one of the dates in King Tut’s tomb, riding through the desert on camels with nomadic Bedouins—were largely inaccessible to her. Personally, I thought Gregorina’s new identity was kind of cool, dates being potentially the world’s oldest cultivated crop, date palm orchards “dating” back (heh, heh, I laughed nervously) to between 3,000 and 5,000 B.C.E. along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Haven’t we all at some point, perhaps during an uncomfortable encounter with a friend or loved one, wished we could temporarily visit ancient Mesopotamia?

NOTE: Friends in crisis do not need facts spewed to them, but I persisted. “You’re 70% sugar by weight!” As if Gregorina cared. “The botanical name for date palm is ‘Phoenix dactylifera,’ dactylifera being Greek for ‘finger-bearing.’” She stared down at me impassively, as did her many, many sisters and brothers clustered around her. I stepped aside, knowing each of those date or finger clusters dangling above my head weighed a good 10 kilograms. As if Gregorina would be thinking metric at a time like this! “That’s about 22 pounds per cluster,” I translated helpfully, thinking on my feet.

I babbled on with my little date tutorial, deep down terrified that the date palm’s natural predator, the mouse, would run up that hundred-foot tree trunk and take a chomp out of Gregorina before I could talk her down. “In ancient Egypt, date palm hieroglyphs were used to designate a year, but we hope you won’t be up there that long,” I yelled. The wind was picking up, my throat beginning to get hoarse. I tried waxing poetic: “Dates are said to thrive ‘feet in water, head in fire,’ because they need lots of ground water and a hot arid climate.” No response. I tried waxing comic: “Commercial date gardens typically have one male tree and 50 female trees planted per acre, kind of like your own ‘dating’ experience, heh heh?” I knew I’d hit a sore spot with that little quip when I felt myself pelted from above.

I started to run, bending to scoop Gregorina’s fallen comrades from the ground. “Gregorina, the average date palm produces 100 pounds of dates a year, with a ‘good’ tree producing between 300 to 600 pounds a year for 100 to 200 years!” All I meant was that clearly she wasn’t alone.

Once safely home, I drew the blinds and whipped up a couple of date treats: a date milkshake and Hot Spiced Dates. Tactless, I know. On a trip to California once, I’d searched high and low for date shakes, and I was pleased to be able to make something this tasty in my own kitchen.

Uncooked, the Hot Spiced Date mixture reminded me of spicy Play-Doh; cooked, they were a delicious bundle of contrasts, the hot date inside the melted spicy cheese a sweet surprise.

The Co-op carries medjool, also known as the “toffee date,” as well ashalawi and deglect dates. Medjool, which my sister, Susan, says tastes like chocolate, is my favorite. If you’ve never tried medjools, you might want to clear the area around you in preparation for your inevitable swoon. “There are over 600 varieties of dates, Gregorina—that’s 601 varieties now!” I called out my door, in case she was still listening.

Date Milkshakes (from www.seaviewsales.com/recipes1.html)

3/4 cup medjool dates, pitted and cubed
1-1/4 cups milk
1 pint vanilla ice cream

Put dates and 1/2 cup milk in blender on high speed. Blend until smooth.
Add remaining milk and ice cream. Blend at low speed until mixed. Serve immediately.

Hot Spiced Dates (from www.recipes4us.co.uk)

4 oz. butter
4 oz cheddar cheese, grated
4 oz. flour
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
24 pitted dates

Preheat oven to 425. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and cheese together very well. Sift the flour together with the cayenne pepper, then slowly beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Wrap small pieces of the mixture around each date. Place on an ungreased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.

Judy Sobeloff has never spent the night in a palm tree.

Copyright: Copyright on articles, recipes and images are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective contributors, except were otherwise noted.

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